I am sick to death of it!!

I have just got out of the car where I was listening to yet another CD designed to help me in my life as an entrepreneur.Don’t get me wrong, the information is valuable information and it has made me some money, and saved me lots of heartache in the past. But there is one fundamental flaw with the majority of “self-help” or “business-help” stuff out there.

On this CD one marketing guru was interviewing another marketing guru, and many of their tips were great. However, something struck me when one guru said “every successful person I have ever met is a great negotiator”, and the second guru huffed and puffed in agreement, that negotiation is vital for any successful entrepreneur.

Now you’ll have to excuse me, because it was only 6 months ago that I was teaching a class in London bullying my students (nicely of course!) into believing exactly that same thing… that they must master negotiation to be a business success.

I now WHOLEHEARTEDLY DISAGREE WITH MYSELF. Ladies and gentleman, I have discovered:I was wrong!! Please take note, this has only happened once before, it was when I thought I made a mistake. (haha! That joke courtesy of the one and only Greg Elliott) But the point is I disagree with Joey-6-months-ago. And with these gurus. And by saying this I am probably disagreeing with about 98% of the authors, speakers, gurus and business experts out there. But here I go… loudly and obnoxiously flouting convention!!

You see… in the last 6 months of introspection and dabbling and gentle business development, I have been trying to identify what I am really good at. What I am really passionate about. And then, anything that does not fall under that category, I find someone else to do it.

I love performance. I love selling. I love business strategy. I am great at moving a crowd and stirring up emotions. I am great at inspiring people to action. I can negotiate… I’m OK at it… but its about as exciting for me as pulling out each toenail one by one. I just don’t enjoy it.

So true to my new commitment to myself, Greg and our business, I teamed up with someone who gets off on negotiation. I mean to her, negotiation is like the Karma Sutra. She’s the Tantric Negotiator I tell ya, and she is good!! She’s good mostly because she likes it!

A small experiment in teamwork, led to a bigger commitment and experiment in team work, has led to a whole new business idea, and an awesome team. We’ve been working together for some time now, and our business is developing so fast I feel like I should call up some authority or other and give myself up because surely we must be doing something criminal for it to be this fun, easy and this successful.

And the greatest tragedy of all… with all this ease, we get to do fun stuff like travel!! Here’s me and Greg at Lakes Entrance after said TEAM breakthroughs!!

Joanna Martin at Lakes entrance

Here’s the thing. TEAM is the key. I really do disagree with so much of what is said out there. If you hate sales, you don’t have to get good at sales… just find someone who loves your vision, and loves sales. If you hate technology, you don’t have to master it… just find someone who gets off on it and who loves your vision.

Mind you… perhaps I can only say this because I now have at least an intellectual understanding of all elements of business, and so I can afford to delegate to or partner with people who have different strengths than mine. What do you think? Perhaps it is necessary for us to comprehend something before we can say “that’s not my gig”. Probably.

Anyway… my thought for the day… if you don’t like it, you’ll never be good at it, so find someone who loves your big picture, and loves the things you hate, and partner with them. Or actually better still… discover what you’re good at and contribute to someone else’s dream first, and carve out your skills and your niche… then you will become hugely attractive and your visions will fly. But more about my “first you give, then you receive discoveries” next time.

See ya then,

jx